Conventional IEEE standards for Ethernet switching encompassed by IEEE 802.1Q are ill suited for use cases such as audio and video streaming over Ethernet and even less suited for control-type applications based on Ethernet. The set of standards encompassed by IEEE 802.1AVB extends the features of IEEE 802.1Q to satisfy the more stringent requirements for audio and video streaming. In particular, IEEE 802.1AS provides a standard for distributed synchronization needed to support synchronized packet processing. The standard defines an end node acting as a Grand Master that sends sync and follow-up frames to other end nodes in order to synchronize the other end nodes with the current time of the Grand Master.